Take Regular Breaks Throughout The Day
Powering through may seem optimal, but research shows that most people perform better when they build breaks into their schedule. We all need time to recharge. Consider trying the Pomodoro technique, where you set a 25-minute timer and then take a 5-minute break. After four intervals, take a more extended 20-30 minute break.
Move Your Body Everyday
Exercise is the fastest and most effective way to clear the fog from your brain and remove the slimy film from your sluggish body. In his book, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise, Dr. John Ratey states that exercise has a profound impact on cognitive abilities and mental health. It is simply one of the best treatments we have for most psychiatric problems.
Movement is powerful, and music is magical. One song can be invigorating and inspire you to move your body. Turn on your favorite playlist and move your body. Start dancing, or even just walking to the rhythm. It will feel good to align your movement with the beat.
What Is Mental Fatigue And How Do You Overcome It
Have you ever felt like everything was a struggle? Completing simple cognitive activities like reading a paper, responding to an email, or deciding what to have for dinner feel impossible and demand more energy than you seem to have.
Mental fatigue is an increasingly familiar feeling caused by chronic stress and uncertainty. Balancing work and home responsibilities bear heavily on many adults, creating mental exhaustion that impacts brain activity and well-being.
If left unchecked for a long time, mental fatigue causes declining productivity and mental health conditions. This article shares seven tips to overcome mental fatigue and maintain productivity when you’re exhausted. We’ll begin with the meaning of mental fatigue and its leading causes.
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Try The Timebox Technique
‘Timebox’ is a term that originated in the software development industry. A timebox is a period of time in which a task must be accomplished. Many savvy entrepreneurs use timeboxing to manage work projects.
Because timeboxing forces you to limit time allotted to specific tasks, it counteracts perfectionism and ensures that you do the best you can within the set time frame. This helps you avoid falling too far down the rabbit hole.
Outward Signs Of Mental Fatigue
Beyond your mental or physical state, mental fatigue will also impact your behavior. If left unchecked, it can create rifts in your relationships, both personal and professional.
Mental fatigue places a strain on your social interactions, either causing you to lash out at others or withdraw from those closest to you.
You can also experience a sudden lack of motivation. The worse the mental exhaustion, the more likely you are to call in sick, look for reasons to avoid or miss work, or reject social or work-related commitments.
In the worst cases, your productivity may drop dramatically, and you may not recognize the person youve become.
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Engage In Regular Exercise
Regular exercise is one of the best tools to minimize the effects of mental fatigue. According to a recent study, higher physical activity results in less fatigue regardless of your age or gender.
Staying active through outdoor or virtual workouts gives you a boost of positivity, energizes you, and improves your sleep. Aerobic and muscle-strengthening workouts also help treat fibromyalgia and prevent other health conditions.
Inhale Exhale And Meditate
Breathe in, breathe out, and focus on your breathing. Severe mental fatigue is not always a result of work. It may be a result of traumatic relationships, issues with the family, or even sharp ups and downs in ones personal life.
Even though we have no control over how our lives will turn out, a positive strategy of calmly meditating while singing solves most issues, to identify the stressor and eliminate it from life the key is to reflect and introspect.
Sai Blackbyrn
CEO, CoachFoundation
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What Is Mental Exhaustion
You probably feel tired and drained after intense physical activity, right? Well, long periods of intense mental activity can wear you out, too.
To put it simply, mental exhaustion can happen when your brain receives too much stimulation or has to maintain an intense level of activity without rest.
You might notice mental exhaustion, sometimes called mental fatigue, if you:
- often work or study for long hours with few or no breaks
- spend a lot of time each day dealing with overwhelming responsibilities
- live with mental health symptoms
- devote a lot of mental energy each day to thinking through problems, worries, or other sources of stress
Its not uncommon to feel physically fatigued from time to time, and the same holds true for mental fatigue. Still, lingering mental fatigue can affect your ability to think, solve problems, or process and regulate emotions. Eventually, it can even lead to challenges in your daily life and in relationships.
Below, well explore mental exhaustion more in-depth, plus offer tips to help manage and prevent it.
Hold On To Healthy Habits
Getting enough sleep, drinking enough water, and eating a nutritious diet can have major effects on your mental health. In fact, a study recently showed that high amounts of sugar in ones diet can have negative effects on cognitive function and increase addictive behaviors and mood issues.
Another finding explained how dehydration is linked to depression and other mental health issues, and people should be drinking about half of their body weight in oz of water each day. And of course, most adults should be allowing themselves at least seven hours of sleep per night according to the Center for Disease Control.
Work to maintain the healthy habits youve established, even if you are extremely tired. While mental exhaustion can make it even harder to maintain healthy habits, giving in to the temptation to make negative changes to your lifestyle often makes the problem worse.
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Mental Fatigue Vs Mental Burnout
Mental fatigue can be temporary and situational. For example, a college student often feels depleted and completely drained after finals week. Or, an accountant might experience mental fatigue during tax season. Usually, relief occurs after the identified stressor passes.
Mental burnout, on the other hand, tends to be more insidious, chronic, and damaging. Burnout can result in extreme apathy, pessimism, and isolation. In addition, it may coincide with worsening depression, anxiety, or substance use disorder symptoms.3
Mental fatigue can be a precursor to mental burnout. If you dont take care of your exhaustion, you might begin to feel helpless and discouraged these emotions are associated with burnout.
What Can Mental Exhaustion Feel Or Look Like
The symptoms of fatigue are different for everyone. However, as stressors slowly build up over long periods of time, we might not recognize the impact right away. In fact, the people around us may notice changes in our behavior before we do.
Weve listed a few examples of the impact mounting stressors may have below. If you recognize these symptoms in yourself, you may be suffering from burnout.
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What If My Circumstances Wont Change
Protective factors can be key to cutting down the negative impacts of situations we cant improve. These are tools and habits that help counteract risk factors, including everything from nurturing a positive self-image to having a supportive friend group.
While some factors might change over time, like your income level or social connections, others, like self-discipline and social skills, stay with you throughout your life. Not having these factors growing up could lead to a higher risk of burnout down the line or other consequences like depression and substance use.
While there are many stressors we wont be able to change in our lives, we can gain tools to help reduce them.
For example, while you might not be able to change a paralyzing injury, a supportive social circle can help lower the stress and change your outlook on life. Systemic racism may be difficult or impossible to escape, but strong advocacy skills can help you feel control and even improve the situation.
Stay On Top Of Stress
Managing stress is easier said than done, but making an effort to clearly understand the underlying causes of your stress can be a big help.
When you consider every item on your to-do list and think through every stressor filling your mind, youre often better able to recognize just how many things are crowding your brain and contributing to mental exhaustion, MacCutcheon says.
She asks clients dealing with mental exhaustion to acknowledge everything on their plates even minor things, such as making a doctor appointment or shopping for a birthday present.
You cant always eliminate every stressful thing from your life, but these tips can help you keep your stress from completely wiping you out.
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Find Ways To Reduce Stress In Your Life
Reducing stress can reduce mental fatigue and improve mental and physical health. Find ways to limit, or even eliminate, sources of stress in your life. For example, if you feel overwhelmed in noisy situations, go shopping late in the evening or early morning when everything is quieter.
Other options include meditation and mindfulness, breathing exercises, yoga, tai chi, massage, and aromatherapy.
Remove Yourself From The Situation Or Take A Break
If possible, remove yourself from the situation or take a break. So if work is causing you stress, try taking a vacation or working fewer hours. If you cant eliminate the stressor, find healthy coping mechanisms to deal with it.
For example, make sure youre taking breaks during the day and not working too late into the night. And always schedule time for yourself every day and use that time doing something you enjoy, such as going for a walk or listening to music.
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Talk To Your Colleagues
We often feel like socializing when we have a lot to do is wrong and unproductive, but this simply isnt true. Taking social breaks to chat with your colleagues about topics that dont relate to work can actually help reduce stress and boost your mood. Having a heavy workload can feel isolating, so this is a mutually beneficial way to reduce both yours and your colleagues stress and to check-in on others to see how theyre doing in general. Better yet, head out on a walk outside with your colleagues to reap the fresh air and social benefits together.
Signs Of Mental Fatigue
The first two signs of mental fatigue are more obvious: feeling sleepy or unfocused naturally alert us to the fact that we are mentally fatigued.
But the third, and perhaps more consequential issue, often goes unnoticed as a key sign of drained mental fortitude.
When your brain gets low on energy, the prefrontal cortex essentially goes offline. The PFC is the more recently evolved, rational part of the brain that is responsible for overriding your emotional instincts where necessary. So if youve noticed that you easily give into cravings, snap at a friend or loved one, or honk in traffic, it is quite possible that your PFC isnt functioning properly.
Mental fatigue, in a sense, causes a self-induced lobotomy.
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Take Back Control Of Your Calendar
Whatâs the best way to get something done? Give it to a busy person. Except, in all likelihood, that busy person is you, and you donât have the time! But without defending your time on the calendar, thereâs nothing to stop people from stealing it from you for their priorities.
So how do you set boundaries in your calendar? Start time blocking your own priorities. Create time blocks for the tasks you want to get through this week, your regular habits like lunch, weekly planning, or exercise, even breaks after meetings so you and if you have a big meeting on the calendar, donât be afraid to block a short break for yourself afterwards so youâre not leaving yourself open for a back-to-back meeting.
Embrace The Power Nap
Finally, if your brain is on overload, or it feels like your mind is about to melt, shut it down, unplug it, and take a nap. Seriously.
Naps, especially power naps, are the equivalent of plugging in your smartphone in the middle of the day to get a little extra charge.
You may not be tired. You may still have plenty of gas in the tank. But a quick nap between 10 to 30 minutes can get your energy and performance back to their early morning levels.
Albert Einstein used naps to power his brain. His strategy was to hold something in his hand that would make a loud noise when it hit the floor. He would then settle into his armchair and nap until his hand relaxed and the thing he was holding hit the floor. This would allow him to drift into a light doze without falling into a deep sleep.
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Mental Exhaustion And Emotional Exhaustion Are Related
Mental exhaustion can lead to emotional exhaustion and vice versa, Dr. Dannaram said. When you are mentally exhausted, it can be challenging to balance your emotional responses since your ability to process stress is limited. You may become irritable, angry or anxious.
And when you are emotionally exhausted, it can affect your attention span, concentration and ability to retain and process information. It can limit your ability to make decisions.
Make Choices That Facilitate Work/life Balance
Mental fatigue can occur as a result of being overworked and overwhelmed. By making choices that facilitate work/life balance, its possible to alleviate this. Many people manage multiple commitments, caring for others, working, and studying.
Finding a way to manage priorities and take time for yourself is a must to avoid burnout.
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Tips For Fighting Mental Fatigue
Summary
If you deal with mental fatigue, it’s probably time to take action. Learn how to improve mental fatigue with these seven tips.
Do you ever feel overwhelmed just thinking about all your responsibilities? Do you find yourself snapping at others who seem too laid back? Have you given up your favorite hobbies because of work and personal responsibilities?
You may be suffering from mental fatigue, and there are ways to fight it so you can refocus your energy and improve your mood.
Take Care Of Yourself
Cortisol, also known as the stress hormone, is not actually a cause of stress. Cortisol helps your body to respond to stress by increasing glucose availability, which gives you an instant boost of energy. Stress is very demanding on the body because of this. This can be avoided by drinking plenty of water and eating healthy foods.
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Cut Back On Screen Time
Overstimulation from our digital screens is one of the major catalysts for most peoples mental fatigue.
Too much time spent browsing the internet not only leaves us mentally overwhelmed by and drowning in excessive digital information but also leaves us constantly stressed due to cramming and rushing our daily tasks.
Not to mention, it exposes us to too much blue light, which is responsible for disrupting our sleep systems, ultimately resulting in emotional imbalances.
Doing a digital detox every now and then will help put us back in control of our time, mind, and sleep, thereby improving our overall well-being.
Jeffrey McQueen, MBA, LCDC
Executive Director, Mental Health Association of Nassau County
Take Care Of Your Physical And Mental Health
In order to look after your mental health, you need to get rid of the bad habits. Instead of eating processed sugars and fast food, you should maintain a healthy diet. Its crucial to drink water avoid soda and commercial juices. Exercising is of the utmost importance! Also, dont ignore the signals that your body is sending you reach out to a friend, or seek help from a specialist. Theres no shame in that.
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A Perfect Storm For Compassion Fatigue
Unlike other disasters that tend to bring people together to rebuild, pandemics make you fear your neighbor.
Pandemics cause compassion fatigue because the price is so high with getting sick and the fear it generates, explains Charles Figley, founder and leading researcher at the Traumatology Institute at Tulane.
The cost of caring is sometimes high, says Figley.
Every day we hear about the millions of Americans who have been infected by the new coronavirus and the hundreds of thousands who have died, often alone and away from family.
We hear the pain of their grieving loved ones, as well as the hardships faced by people losing their jobs, fearing eviction, and being unable to feed their families.
We get burned emotionally when we absorb trauma on a regular basis without a working plan to manage the consequence of the trauma memories and its wake of impact, says Figley.
This is why, throughout history, plagues have often led to loss of compassion. In the early 15th century and 16th century, plague victims were shipped to an island to die and buried in mass graves. In other cities, victims were sealed in their homes and no food or care was allowed.
In A Journal of the Plague Year, Daniel Defoe wrote about an epidemic that struck London in 1665.
Everyone is struggling, and so its important to look out for each other, says Eric Zillmer, a professor of neuropsychology. Compassion creates a sense of belonging and a feeling of peace and mindfulness.
